“We’re going to take down the red tape and we’re going to put up the red carpet.” Rodrigo Chavez
DAVOS.- “Latin America has disappeared from the radar and it’s not good.” The words of Arancha González Laya, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain and today Dean of the School of International Relations in Paris, point to an undeniable reality. It has always been difficult for Ibero-America to have a leading role in the world, but in 2022 it is more difficult, despite the fact that the region should attract many investments that will no longer go to Russia and China.
“Everyone thinks he invented populism, but we invented populism,” says Andrés Velasco, Chile’s finance minister under Michelle Bachelet and currently dean of the Institute for Public Policy at the London School of Economics, sarcastically. Populism is largely a product of the institutions we have given ourselves. “In Peru we have a president who received only 20 percent of the votes in the first round,” he said, “and who has only one out of every 10 deputies in Congress.”
The foregoing does not mean that Latin American countries are not taking advantage of the moment to seek investment in the World Economic Forum. Pedro Castillo, president of Peru, canceled at the last minute, due to the political turbulence in his country, but sent his vice president, Dina Ercilia Boluarte, who, in a panel yesterday with Latin American presidents, offered several times the message that in the government of Peru “we guarantee the investment of entrepreneurs”. Iván Duque from Colombia and Luis Abinader from the Dominican Republic expressed the same invitation. Rodrigo Chaves, who assumed the presidency of Costa Rica just two weeks ago, offered to remove the red tape, the bureaucracy, and roll out the red carpet, the red carpet. From Mexico, there is not a single official at any level.
Velasco pointed out that there is a generation of Latin Americans that have grown up without inflation and that today they will face this phenomenon for the first time. “They have also lived with democracy, but they are not satisfied with democracy.” This is one of the reasons why voters have increasingly turned to populist politicians who promise easy solutions. The curious thing is that democratic governments and liberal economic policies have had positive results, even in those issues in which they are most questioned today: “The region has become less unequal, but that has not reduced the fury,” said Velasco. Today more complicated times are approaching. Only high commodity prices have prevented a “perfect storm”, but even here governments are failing. They are using the resources of the bonanza to create new subsidies, for example, for fuel. They are throwing money away instead of using it to increase the productivity of their economies.
Perhaps the most curious thing is that there is now a new Latin American country. Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times, complained about what is happening in his country, the United States: “For the first time in 2024, we have doubts about a peaceful transition of power.” The influence of Donald Trump, who has refused to acknowledge defeating him in 2020, is fueling an attitude among conservative voters that only a Republican victory can be legitimate. It is something that we have seen frequently in Latin America, and in Mexico, but that until now has not occurred in the United States. And it is not a good sign, neither for Americans nor for Latin Americans.
Clean.- Pedro Sánchez, Spanish president, a socialist, made a call yesterday to face the challenges of Spain and Europe with greater investment, especially in clean energy. He thanked the presence in Davos of several Spanish businessmen, including Ignacio Sánchez Galán from Iberdrola, whose investments in clean energy are crucial to achieving the goal.
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